BREAKING: DOJ appoints special counsel to investigate Russia-Trump

The Department of Justice has just appointed a special counsel to investigate Russia’s involvement in our election, and any collusion by Trump and his associates.

The investigation will be led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was originally appointed director by George W. Bush, and then asked to remain on the job for another two years by President Obama. So this was a smart move, in terms of being a quasi-bipartisan pick.

Also interesting, the decision to appoint the special counsel was made by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was pilloried last week for drafting a letter to help Donald Trump fire now-former FBI Director James Comey. So it’s very interesting that Rosenstein was the person to make this decision (Attorney General Sessions couldn’t make the decision, as he had to recuse himself from all Russia-investigation-related decisions.) Rosenstein has clearly, at least in part, reestablished his independence. And at the same time, Donald Trump must be kicking himself for thinking Rosenstein was his man.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

And this also means that no longer can Donald Trump influence the investigation. According to CBS News, the special counsel will be a civil servant, and will not be able to be removed by the president.

Now, the special counsel investigates crimes. If he doesn’t find any, this entire investigation could end in nothing. Also, there’s a chance that this deflates the ongoing news about Russia, since the investigation will take place behind closed doors, and Republicans can now say “hey, there’s an investigation going on, let it take its course.”

Having said that, this is still huge news overall, and bad news for Donald Trump. To date, most of the news about Russia has been coming from the media, not from the various investigations (FBI, Senate, House). So, it’s not clear that the appointment of a special counsel will stop the bad news from coming.

All in all, this is great news for anyone concerned about whether we’d get to the bottom of what happened with the election, and what role Trump and company had if any.

With the election of Donald Trump, AMERICAblog’s independent journalism and activism is more needed than ever.

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John AravosisFollow me on Twitter: @aravosis | @americablog | @americabloggay | Facebook | Instagram | Google+ | LinkedIn. John Aravosis is the Executive Editor of AMERICAblog, which he founded in 2004. He has a joint law degree (JD) and masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown; and has worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, and as a stringer for the Economist. He is a frequent TV pundit, having appeared on the O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline, AM Joy & Reliable Sources, among others. John lives in Washington, DC. John's article archive.